Dr. Saavedra’s job depends on his public support for the school board’s agenda. Instead of hiring experts to do their job without strings….HISD marionettes salute whatever board politics are run up the flagpole. Abe is a caring individual in an untenable position> he has to march lockstep to something he must know is wrong. He missteps because he is marching to a tune he did not compose and cannot with conscience hear. This is Dr. Paige’s lasting legacy for HISD: a culture of cowards inwhich keeping the job interferes with doing the job. The No Child Left Behind Act…or as I prefer to call it, “The Haunting Fear Somewhere Children are Happy and Their Teachers are Smiling” is the natural extension of his inauspicious tenure.